First Principle: Evidence is the best, most reliable way for humans to approximate truth as we interrogate the world of experience.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

god's Farcical Role as 'Explanation'

One of the most common
"arguments" that I, as an atheist, hear regarding god's alleged
necessity is that, given the incredible complexity (or beauty, or wonder, or
intricacy) of certain components of the natural order (i.e., the human eye, the bacterial flagellar motor, the human
brain), the only possible explanation for the existence of such complexity is
an intelligent designer, which is then read as god. The ludicrousness of this argument
cannot be overstated. It is pure farce to point to something like the human eye
or the bacterial flagellar motor—much less, with respect to the origins of life, an ultimately simple single-celled organism—and "explain" its existence,
as Christians feebly attempt, by citing an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent
deity whose nature defines good and evil, who developed an infallible plan in
which every one of us plays a part, who is concerned with and monitors our
behavior, who reigns over heaven, who listens to and occasionally answers
prayers that are transmitted by hushed murmuring, and who sent a son—with whom
he exists as part of a mysterious trinity—to die for humanity's sins, after which he
resurrected his son bodily. To call this monstrosity—this haphazardly stapled-on
appendage—an "explanation" is to make oneself appear to be a fool.

6 Comments:

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.

Then either god does not embody "quality," or god was skillfully crafted. And, of course, god's hypothetical skillful crafter must, himself, have been skillfully crafted.

And, yes, if we are talking about the emergence of living matter from non-living matter, I maintain that the Christian god is a farcical "explanation."

Ultimately simple single-celled life cannot be "explained" by citing an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity whose nature defines good and evil, who developed an infallible plan in which every one of us plays a part, who is concerned with and monitors our behavior, who reigns over heaven, who listens to and occasionally answers prayers that are transmitted by hushed murmuring, and who sent a son--with whom he exists as part of a mysterious trinity--to die for humanity's sins, after which he resurrected his son bodily.

Then tell the doctors and the hundred tumors in my body that your god made my DNA quality, that I don't have a genetic mutation that is going to kill me, and that I am going to continue to propagate our species with quality offspring. And don't try to tell me your god has a plan for me and that's why he did it. I will just refer you to the fallacy of petitio principii. Logic never fails.

It is nearly impossible to enjoy this topic of discussion, even with swift and cunning prose, without at some juncture sounding like a fool. One can always opt out and admit we don't know what started this experience we all share, this universe, but that move produces as much dissatisfaction as saying it is pointless to ask, and in addition, existence is absurd and inherently meaningless. Say earth suddenly disappeared and every living being with it, the universe would carry on as it did and does before earths inception. But why, oh why, does the universe exist at all? What is all this? Somehow the clock started ticking, and it ticks whether we know it or not. It is the limit to of our testable knowledge. Just like the physics light double slit paradox experiment, nature can evade our deepest probes, she can chuck Norris her way out of checkmate. It's mind boggling.